Grain-Free Raspberry Muffins

by Susan on September 20, 2012

It’s the tail end of raspberry season, and Whole Foods had gorgeous organic berries on special. I’m still struggling to find food soft enough for the girl to eat, so I’ve been putting the berries to good use. Yesterday they became part of a mango-berry smoothie, and this morning I baked them into muffins she could bring as part of her school lunch.

I can’t take credit for today’s recipe, which I found on the lovely Happy Healthy Mama blog. Maryea’s point of view and recipes are right up my alley; she doesn’t cook for any specific allergies, but rather embraces whole foods and trying to feed her family as well as possible. If her Grain-Free Raspberry Coconut Muffins are any indication, HHM is definitely a site worthy following!

These came together quickly enough that I whipped them up before sending the kids off to school. They are free of dairy, gluten, grains and refined sugar. While coconut flour can tend to be a bit dense, these muffins have a great spongy texture and sweet, almost buttery taste.

The only thing I would do differently next time would be to bake them in mini muffin cups. My muffins didn’t rise very much, so the end results were more like muffin tops than full-out little cakes. This phenomena made me feel a little bit like Elaine from Seinfeld. Anyone remember the muffin top episode? And I’m not referring to the unfortunate sight of a woman in ill-fitting pants…

But I digress. This recipe is a keeper, and yet another reason you should rush to pick up some coconut flour if you haven’t tried baking with it yet. I especially love Maryea’s suggestion to drop raspberries in stages into the muffin tin. It keeps the berries from all sinking to the bottom, and makes me a much prettier finished product.

You could make these muffins using honey instead of maple syrup, and obviously could sub another fruit for the raspberries. I haven’t had luck using egg substitutes with coconut flour, but I’ll keep trying for all the vegans out there!